Snaptu – the mobile gateway to the Internet

Review Conditions

Snaptu was installed on a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device.

Installation

Installation is via the web link http://m.snaptu.com, which guides you through the download and install process or you could give your mobile number at http://snaptu.com/download and you get an SMS link to download the application on to your mobile via the Internet. More and more applications are distributed this way. It totally avoids the need to keep track of updated versions, having a local copy of the .sisx file and so on. The application also has an “upgrade” option that checks for updates on the Internet and automatically updates the new version if available.

First View

I really expected a lot a lot from Nokia’s widisets. It was a great opportunity to bring the web to the mobile in a novel way. But I believe they squandered it because the application was slow and not very user friendly. How does Snaptu measure up? Read on.

Main Review

Snaptu is a directory or mobile applications, all accessible through this installed s60 client. The mobile applications appear as cute iPhone-like icons and each is a mobile-customized version of popular websites designed for easy navigation, single-click access and with mobile-friendly fonts.

 

Snaptu carries applications for various interests – news sites like Reuters, BBC & The Guardian, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Sudoku, a fine Dictionary, Cricinfo, Football scores, AccuWeather, a UK box office chart site and a few more!

 

 

What I liked about Snaptu was the easy navigation in each application – be it reading articles, following live scores or updating your status in Facebook and Twitter. For e.g., cricinfo.com, the famous cricket website, which has hundreds of articles, live scores and statistics never had a good mobile application for following scores. Navigating cricinfo on the mobile was a big hassle. But Snaptu has captured it all with just 4 categories – Live Scores, Fixtures, Results and News and each like leads to further information. Or take The Guardian, all the news and op-ed categories are listed in the screen and you can navigate further to the category you want.

You can add or remove applications, upgrade Snaptu, change languages. Currently only English and Italian are supported.

Handling

With every piece of information accessible in just one click, the ease of use that Snaptu provides is quite impressive. 

Weaknesses

I can’t find any weaknesses. I only need to see more applications in Snaptu.

Conclusion

Snaptu is mobile web done right. Its all about serving up the right web content in small capsules instead of one having to to navigate numerous links and data hungry web pages.  I’ll give it 5 of 5. Its a must have. Get it now!

Tagged as: Snaptu, web